She cradled her wrist to her chest, but there was no hiding it. Several splinters sat lodged in her skin, glimmering oddly in the light. Blood ran down her forearm in sticky red tributaries.
A dozen unasked questions dropped to the floor between them. She wished he’d ask. She wished he’d push. On a night like tonight, she just might crack. She might tell him how awful it felt, watching someone die at her feet—how the mere sound of her voice could snap a man’s mind clean in half, pop the capillaries in his skin, until he bled out without a scrape.
She might tell him she used to have quite a lot to talk about, back before something in a deep, dark hole decided to shut her up for good.
But he didn’t ask, and so she didn’t say.
You can go, she signed instead.I’m fine.
He hesitated. He seemed to be carefully considering his next words. “I don’t feel comfortable leaving you on your own right now.”
I don’t need your help. It’s nothing.
“It doesn’t feel like nothing.” He was being too cautious with her, and it was making her want to scream. In the door, he looked just as aggravated as she felt. A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Let me at least look at—”
No.She pinched her fingers in his face.I’ll do it myself.
She left him standing there on the threshold, his expression thunderous as she stalked off to the bathroom alone. The light in there was dim, the counters cluttered with cosmetic products. Cast in the pale glow of the sink’s illuminated mirror, her face looked white as a sheet.
But at least it was her own.
She turned on the faucet and let the water run cool and clear over her wrist. It pooled red atop the drain, dark as a ruby. The cuts were shallow, the splinters small. It hurt worse than she expected, the way a paper cut burned at the touch.
A movement in the glass brought her head up, quick as a rabbit.
It was Thomas, delineated against the soft pink glow of her bedroom.
“Please don’t ask me to leave,” he said, before she could say otherwise. “Because I’ll go if you tell me to, but I won’t feel good about it.”
The look on his face unlatched something inside her. Something too unnerving to name, too raw to poke at. She nodded her silent approval, unease sparking in her veins. It wasn’t that she wanted him to stay; it was only that she didn’t want to be alone.
She was always alone, and she was tired of it.
Crossing to the sink, Thomas reached for the faucet and shut it off. The running water trickled to a stop. In the ensuing hush, they stood shoulder to shoulder and took in the cluttered surface of her vanity.
“It’s funny,” he said, lifting up a powder compact to inspect it. “I thought you’d be a neat freak, but you’re actually kind of a mess.”
She plucked the compact from his hand and set it back onto the counter. In the mirror, his reflection flashed her a dimpled grin. “I like it. It makes you feel a little more human.”
I’m not normally messy, she confessed.I’ve been having a hard time.
She didn’t know what made her admit it. Embarrassment crept in on a pink flush, heating her cheeks. At her side, Thomas’s expression went solemn.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Why? So you can use it against me the next time you need something?
He winced. “That’s fair.”
An uneasy silence sank between them. Neither of them seemed to know how to breach it. He fell to poking around in her cosmetics, prying a pair of tweezers out of a rumpled mess of ribbon. “I can work with these. Give me your hand.”
She hung back, wary.This isn’t part of your job description.
“Yeah, well, I’m off the clock.” He held out his hand between them. “Let me see.”
Grudgingly, she relented, stepping away from the vanity and placing her hand in his. The subtle shift guided him away from the glass, so that his back was to the mirror, and also the girl inside it. It brought a fraction of relief, and only that. Gently maneuvering her hand, Thomas leaned in to inspect the damage.
It wasn’t so bad up close. She’d done far worse. She pressed the heel of her good hand to her eye, rubbing until she saw a phosphene sheen. Her hand came away wet, which startled her. She hadn’t even realized she’d been crying.
